JRod To Be Guest on ESPN’s Outside the Lines Wednesday

Quick post to let you all know that I’m going to be on Outside the Lines this afternoon. It starts at 3:00 CDT and I’m leaving right now to head down to the ESPN Studios in Dallas. They are doing a feature on the Raul Ibanez story.

This should be interesting and fun. It will be me, Ken Rosenthal, and John Gonzalez from the Philadelphia Inquirer I believe.

Blogs raise interesting problems from a legal perspective. For example, my line of business is not in slander and libel, but my recollection from law school is that if you make an allegation that is not true, and you suspect it might not be true, and it injures reputation and results in actual damages, well, you’ve libeled or slandered someone. Blogs cannot be, and should not be, more insulated from legal analysis than a newspaper or magazine.

What fascinates me more, honestly, is the fact that ESPN is doing a feature on this “story.” There is no story. The only story-line is JRod making a name for himself by throwing out a baseless accusation with absolutely no factual support.

JRod, you are to blame for this, but think of it this way: you are getting your 15 minutes of fame. Somehow, I think that has as much to do with the “story” as PEDs.

JRod, you are a complete jerk. Just saw the piece on OTL. Leave the reporting to real journalists, even if they get it wrong. I’m sure you’re all jacked up now cause you got what you probably wanted, more hits for your lame blog site, now you have your 15 minutes of fame.
Stay in mommy’s basement.

You got railroaded. It was a commentary column that never actually accused anyone of anything. Just an insight into the way fans (and media) have to think about our sports heroes these days.

This ESPN piece was an example of mainstream media folks hanging up on a new media guy. You wrote what we’re all thinking, what they say on TV all the time about various players, and somehoe you are evil?

Libel and slander are when you say that someone did something that they did not. When they are damaged somehow. You never said Ibanaez cheated. You said that his numbers this year are the type of thing that create suspicion.

@Scott, what a douche. so it’s ok to insinuate that someone may be juicing without coming out and saying it. i’m sure we could find plenty of athletes who have performed at a higher level at an older age than when younger. vijay singh on the pga tour, for example. so if we saw a picture of you today as opposed to when you were in high school, i guess someone could say you’re on the juice cause you weigh more.

@HammerTime, He never insinuated that Ibanez was juiced. He came right out and said that it is a possibility. Is that not true?

If this writer had said “Ibanez is doping,” that would be wrong. If he had said that all this evidence “proves” he’s doping, that would be wrong.

Read the post. He goes through a crapload of statistical and anecdotal evidence for why Ibanez is booming right now. He offers a number of possible reasons why: protection in the lineup, success in hitters parks, success against bad pitchers, statistical anomalies based on sample size, luck, more offseason work, and steroids (he didn’t mention the possible advantage of switching leagues).

Why is no one upset that he badmouthed those pitchers? Or that he credited the success potentially to luck.

If I say that based on certain evidence I have come across, I think that some defendant might be guilty, is that wrong?

He didn’t say “Ibanez is cheating and here’s how I know…” He said, “Here are the facts and one hypothesis is that he’s cheating.” Big difference.

2, YOU DON’T THINK THIS IS NOT INSINUATING?
And maybe that training includedâ€¦
Well, you know where that one was going, but Iâ€™d prefer to leave it as unstated speculation. YOU DO THIS IN REAL PRINT AND YOU’RE HEADED TO COURT.

3, HOMERS ARE FLYING OUT OF YANKEE STADIUM AT A RECORD CLIP. MAYBE EVERYONE THERE IS JUICED?

Do you live in a basement? Do you have friends you talk to about baseball? Are you not seeing STEROIDS all over the news nowadays? Are Manny, Barry, Rafael, Sammy, Mark, etc. not steroids-users who hit 40-50 HRs a year in their late 30s? D-bag.

Ya didn’t do too bad, they beat you up some because they all have chips on their shoulders. Ya know the difference between you and ken? Nothing, you both have opinion about sports and get paid. “professional” vs. blog is just BS. Hell a ‘professional’ ‘insider’ is more bias AND unprofessional because he knows if he writes something bad he loses access to the Philly locker room and can’t feel like a ballplayer anymore. Like I need him in there so I can get my daily dose of “we need to play hard’, ‘it’s not about money I just want to help the club’, and whatever other cliche players spew. Hell we don’t ever get the inside dope until a blogger pisses a player off or they get arrested (not that I care about that crap). I love these so called professional guys that think they are better then bloggers, bullshit. They say bloggers are just the same guys you talk about sports with at the watercooler, hell that’s much more entertaining then listening to what ken writes everyday, easy.

You want non bias journalism? Unless you’re actually there seeing it for yourself a blogger isn’t any better or worse then these so called professionals. Get as close to first hand as you can, the further away from that you are the more fucked up the story is going to be, doesn’t matter if you get it 3rd hand from the TV, web, or you’re watercooler buddy.

Jerod, I just watched OTL. You’re right: Steriods and the handling of the steroid issue has removed a lot of the credibility from baseball. Ken’s comment about a standard of decency is vague at best and unenforceable which meeans he just let out a lot of hot air. I was a bit surprised that both Ken and John were crying foul so loudly. Steroids have taken something from the game, period. You are right, high performance is suspect now.

I accept Ibanez’s bet – please email me. I’ll put my entire net worth into to trust. I have $900,000 in property and 76k in a retirement account. I want blood stored at WADA in Toronto for 20 years tested every three to let the testers catch up with the cheats. I want you to film it. Please contact me..

@MARINER MANIAC,
ATTENTION WHORE is the best comeback you have for someone that defended his statements? Give me a break. Jerod wrote a well-thought out and articulated article backing up what he said with numbers from past years. At least @pnmlaw attempted, but failed, to bring an argument forward. However, in doing so forgot the supreme law of the United States, The Constitution (high school government, look into it), clearly addresses freedom of speech and press in its first amendment. At no point does he state an accusation of Ibanez using the juice, which would constitue slander. You just can’t deal with the fact his comments were brought to the national spotlight, because some douche looking for a ground-breaking story in Philly found something that was generating a little buzz on the internet and spun the words to his own advantage. Read the article without any bias and get over the fact you were not on ESPN. Well done Jerod,

Jerod-
Speculators can think what they like. There is free speech in our constitution, and you never said anything to tarnish raul ibanez’s career. That is the problem with the media these days. Everyone makes their own interpretations of what point you are trying to get across. Anyone who opposes this obviously does not pay attention to all of the other people who have been questioned, like those from the mitchell report. No one really grilled that author for making points with statistical evidence. All I am saying is that if you are a baseball fan as much as I am, you know that you can’t just believe what someone says to be true. As far as I am concerned, baseball players in this era should expect speculation and questioning and just ignore it. All they have to do is prove them wrong. That simple. And for those two reporters to corner you just because you stated a valid point that you can’t help but agree with was an improper way of taking care of this issue. Name calling is what I call speculation too. You obviously aren’t a 47 year old man who blogs in his moms basement. If you ask me, you are well off. Great job handling the interview.

What amazed me about this piece is that they just didn’t get it. No matter how many times you tried to explain yourself, that you never accused anyone, they dismissed it. Typical established media bias. Blogs are like editorials and commentary. You can write such things. It seems like the PI guy needed a story.